Mint Street Park
A city park with a strong community
- Our new stage is a focus for our community celebrations
Mint Street has become a centre for our Bankside community. The largest green park in Bankside it now has great links to our much loved Adventure Playground, a community stage, a renewed play area with a great rocky climbing wall, and a ball court. Everyone admires the gorgeous planting maintained by homeless people from the nearby St Mungo’s Hostel. We are all looking forwards to the next phase of improvements.
A decade ago Mint Street Park was a semi-derelict open space with a reputation for crime and anti-social behaviour. BOST brought together the local community, with support from Southwark Council and the then ODPM, to meet the needs of key user groups including homeless people, parents, and young people, all of whom were to play a role in improving the space, resulting in the transformed park you see today.
Yet there is still room for improvement. We are bringing together a partnership of local people, Southwark Council and other agencies, working to focus attention on the park and make sense of the boundaries. We have devised a plan to green the wide walkway in front of the stage, and add much more planting. Rather excitingly we are also hoping to make the park bigger! We are working with Southark Council to achieve all the necessary permissions to close the redundant roads within the park and we hope to hold a consultation event around this in autumn.
Many people still living remember with affection the original Evelina Children’s Hospital which stood here 1869 – 1976 and made important inroads into tackling the high rate of childhood diseases prevalent in the crowded Victorian streets of Bankside. We are working now to ensure that this park continues as a healthy place, providing green respite from the busy urban grind.
Mint Street Park is on Southwark Bridge Road, and Marshalsea Road, SE1
